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Journal of Alpine Research | Revue de géographie alpine 102-2 | 2014 Espaces et acteurs pastoraux : entre pastoralisme(s) et pastoralité(s) What place for pastoral activities in the economic transformation of Vicdessos (Ariège Pyrenees)? Pierre Dérioz, Maud Loireau, Philippe Bachimon, Églantine Cancel et David Clément Édition électronique URL : http://journals.openedition.org/rga/2398 DOI : 10.4000/rga.2398 ISSN : 1760-7426 Éditeur : Association pour la diffusion de la recherche alpine, UGA Éditions/Université Grenoble Alpes Référence électronique Pierre Dérioz, Maud Loireau, Philippe Bachimon, Églantine Cancel et David Clément, « What place for pastoral activities in the economic transformation of Vicdessos (Ariège Pyrenees)? », Journal of Alpine Research | Revue de géographie alpine [En ligne], 102-2 | 2014, mis en ligne le 07 septembre 2014, consulté le 10 décembre 2020. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/rga/2398 ; DOI : https://doi.org/ 10.4000/rga.2398 Ce document a été généré automatiquement le 10 décembre 2020. La Revue de Géographie Alpine est mise à disposition selon les termes de la licence Creative Commons Attribution - Pas d'Utilisation Commerciale - Pas de Modification 4.0 International. What place for pastoral activities in the economic transformation of Vicdesso... 1 What place for pastoral activities in the economic transformation of Vicdessos (Ariège Pyrenees)? Pierre Dérioz, Maud Loireau, Philippe Bachimon, Églantine Cancel et David Clément NOTE DE L’ÉDITEUR Research conducted under the SYSTERPA programme, accredited by the Human- Environment Observatory of Upper Vicdessos. 1 According to Digard (in Brisebarre et al., 2009), pastoralism is a “method of agricultural farming based on extensive grazing of livestock on natural pastures.” It fulfils many other functions in addition to its productive one in mountain areas (Bornard, Cozic, 1998), which were identified in France with the passing of the Pastoral Act of 1972 (Charbonnier, 2012). This multifunctionality of pastoral activities, which ranges from their essential contribution to the maintenance of the environment (preservation of biodiversity and open landscapes, limiting the risks of avalanches, landslides or fires) to their involvement in the development of territories, leads them to interact closely with other components of mountain territorial systems. It is through these interactions, which confront pastoral actors to other resident-actor groups, managers or users at the local level, that pastoral activities find territorial anchoring, very different from the vertical technical structuring that is induced by their belonging to a specific sector and its network. As Mermet (2010) shows when he analyzes, in the context of the Mézenc plateau, the contrast between the insertion of the meat farmers into local society and the “delocalization of the social space of the milk producer [...] considered in vertical professional relationships”, this territorial anchoring does not happen automatically. It is the result of a complex social process, at Journal of Alpine Research | Revue de géographie alpine, 102-2 | 2014 What place for pastoral activities in the economic transformation of Vicdesso... 2 the crossroads of several concomitant phenomena, variously articulated depending on territory: • The assertion of environmental concerns (biodiversity, landscape diversity) and their regulatory and political manifestation at different scales, which lead to a recognition of the value of pastoralism and to its support in its role as manager of mountain environments (Blanc, 2009; Turquin, 2009; Lepart et al., 2001). • The convergence between local approaches adopted by producer groups to rely on territorial origin to promote their products (Frayssigne, 2008, Martin et al., 2000) and efforts towards the re-territorialization of agriculture-support public policies, which had long remained sector-oriented (Rieutort, 2009; Eychenne, 2012). • Identification and mobilization of “territorial resources” (Landel, Senil, 2009; Gumuchian, Pecqueur, 2007) for inter-communal constructions at various scales. These consist of approaches in which the encouragement of sectors of activities that have a potential for development (including, where appropriate, pastoral activities) goes hand in hand with their rise in importance in the definition (or redefinition) and the communication of a collective identity (Chandivert, 2005). • Among consumers (residents and/or tourists), a dual quest for meaning and quality (Allaire, 2002; Pecqueur, 2001) which pertains both to products (intrinsic qualities and/or mode of environmentally virtuous production) as well as to the landscapes or the coherence and intelligibility of local identities. 2 In analyzing the process of “social construction of a quality product” – in this case, the “Free-Range Lambs” of Parc des Cévennes – Blanc and Roué (2005) show how the way these different resources combine creates synergies and constraints1 at the same time. They further emphasize the fundamental role of actor interactions. Products and services are clearly not the only basis for transactions between pastoral and other actors. Each group at the same time develops its own representations of pastoral activities and their place in the territory, manifesting as various interlinked behaviours, strategies and practices. Turquin (2014) suggests introducing the pastorality neologism to designate this complex of representations, which includes “all the values and characteristics, real or imagined, of what is pastoral, and embodied by pastoral actors” and which does not necessarily create a coherent and shared whole. Thus, regarding shepherds and the aura that surrounds the practices of transhumance, Rieutord (2006) examines this “new system of images and values originating with our urban society”, whose projection on pastoral activities creates a “pastoral myth”. 3 Three levels of questions arise from these findings. The first pertains to the integration, at a greater or lesser degree depending on the context, of the reference to pastoralism and its spaces in the imagination and the rhetoric of territories. With regards to this symbolic pastorality of varying intensity, it is also a matter of evaluating, at various levels, the actual role of pastoral activities in the territory’s functioning, with particular attention to all their modes of interaction with local society. We suggest that the thicket of these interactions can be dense, without actually reinforcing pastoralism everywhere within the territorial identity, probably because of the informal nature of some practices of this “usage-based pastorality”. Finally, it seems clear to us that the gradual “revelation” of a territory’s pastorality is most of the time part of a deliberate strategy, which combines using pastoral activities and spaces as resources and, at the same time, the highlighting of their contribution. In this respect, if “the desire for agricultural of the territories” (Turquin, 2012) can sometimes appear out of step with the representations of Journal of Alpine Research | Revue de géographie alpine, 102-2 | 2014 What place for pastoral activities in the economic transformation of Vicdesso... 3 livestock breeders, the latter seem equally capable as others to manipulate the symbolic dimension of their work, and to produce – or co-produce – pastorality to serve their own rationales. 4 This questioning underlies the analysis of the place of pastoral activities in the territory on which this article focuses. Vicdessos is a community of communes of the Ariège Pyrenees (10 communes, with just under 1450 inhabitants) which was faced with the need of a radical economic restructuring due to the disappearance, in 2003, of the industry which had presided over its destiny all through the 20th century. The scale and speed of this change have made Vicdessos a suitable subject of interdisciplinary research conducted within the framework of an OHM2, in which the SYSTERPA programme, which attempts to analyze the restructuring of this local-scale territorial system, explored the socio-economic as well as the symbolic aspects of pastoral activities. Hitherto marginalized by the dominance of industrial employment, pastoral activities do not appear to be at the core of the strategy of transformation currently adopted by local political authorities, which relies primarily on the touristic attractiveness of mountain landscapes and a wide rage of outdoor recreational activities offered by the territory. 5 Focused on the “touristic” system and the work of recasting the territory’s identity that accompanies its emergence, our initial studies (Dérioz et al., 2012a; 2012b) did not accurately assess the place of pastoral activities in this new context. This only became possible following the comprehensive survey conducted in 20133 among farmers of the 15 or so big livestock farms still active in Vicdessos. In addition to the diagnosis of this sector of activity it made possible, this research has also focused on the modalities of the participation of pastoral activities in the emerging tourism system: this second aspect involves as much the livestock farmers themselves and their ability to seize opportunities related to the presence of tourists as it does territorial administrations and their efforts to support pastoralism, re-introduce some of its aspects in their territorial rhetoric, and thereby instil a dose of pastorality in the ongoing reshaping of the territory’s identity. From one system to another, pastoral activities